Cry Little Sister
by redsandman99
Summary: On April 7, 2001, CM Punk’s little sister April went missing. Everyone believed she was dead. But she comes back and nobody is prepared for what she’s been turned into
1. Chapter 1

Cry Little Sister

Summary: On April 7, 2001, CM Punk's little sister April went missing. Everyone believed she was dead. But she comes back and nobody is prepared for what she's been turned into

Chapter 1

_"Phil, watch your sister while we're gone," Mrs. Brooks said to her teenaged son._

_Phil groaned. "Mom, I don't want to be her babysitter. Why don't you hire a real one that you'll actually pay?"_

_"Just do what your mother says Phil," Mr. Brooks snapped. "We'll only be gone for a few hours."_

_Phil sighed as his parents left. He hated babysitting April. She was so annoying! She always wanted him to play house or dolls or some crap like that._

_"Phil," April whined. She was a small, dark haired eleven year old. "I want a candy bar."_

_"So go to the gas station," he replied. "You're a big girl; you can go by yourself." He stuck his headphones in and closed his eyes so he could concentrate on the music. He must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he knew, his dad was shaking him._

_"Where is your sister?" Mr. Brooks demanded. "Where did April go?"_

_"She was just right--" Phil started to say. He got quiet when he remembered their conversation. She had gone to the gas station. But why wasn't she back yet?_

_The police were called that night. It was learned April had made it to the gas station, but had been snatched on the way back. All they found was one of her shoes and her candy bar._

CM Punk tried to block out the memory as he entered the arena. He didn't want to think about April. Though they never said it, they obviously blamed him for her disappearance. Honestly, he blamed himself too. All she wanted to do was go to the gas station and get a candy bar. And he had been too big of a dick to do that! Maybe if he had been around he could have done something. Maybe she would still be around today.

"Punk! Hey Punk!" Rob Van Dam yelled. He was already dressed in his wrestling gear. "You, Me and Kane get to beat up Elijah, Miz and Morrison."

Punk managed to grin. It was always fun to beat up the three loud mouths of the locker room. "That's great man."

Rob frowned. "You don't sound that excited. What's up with you man? You look like Sabu when he's crankier than usual or Sandman that time he was watching Tommy dance at my wedding."

"Hey!" Tommy said. He and Sandman happened to be sitting near by. "I'm not that bad!"

"Yeah you are Dreamer," Sandman said. He took a drink of his beer.

"You want to know how bad he was?" Shawn Michaels asked. He and Triple H were dressed in full DX gear.

"You didn't see it. You weren't even at my wedding," Rob reminded him.

"Don't him started," Triple H said in exasperation. "He's convinced that he can read people's minds and shit like that. I've been dealing with this all day."

Punk chuckled. It was nice to know that DX had managed to distract Rob from trying to find out what was wrong with him. Nobody knew about April. He hadn't told Maria, and he told her things nobody else knew. They were broken up now, but she still knew him better than anybody else. Except when it came to April, of course. His guilt over April was something he intended to take to his grave.

_Underground lab, two miles outside Las Vegas_

The screaming had stopped. The mad scientists employed that worshipped the ground Dr. Johnson walked on were all dead. In fact, every body there but one was dead: Subject 2239.

Once upon a time, she did have a real name. She also had a family. But that had been taken from her. A stolen childhood…a stolen girl who had been broken. Broken by Dr. Johnson's experiments. She never understood exactly what was being done, but she did know some things. She knew they made her stronger and faster than she had ever been before. She also knew she was supposed to be a controlled assassin. The words "Lilac one" were supposed to bring her under control and "Lake of fire" were supposed to set her off. Another thing she knew was that a lot of the experiments hurt.

They hurt a lot.

But Dr. Johnson had made one fatal mistake. The last experiment done was supposed to make her even more unstoppable. And it did. She proved that during a demonstration. Dr. Johnson had to go to an appointment so he ordered the session to be videotaped. She had demolished the last of the captive girls in two seconds.

But it wasn't because of the trigger. The last experiment had somehow taken away the effects of the trigger. She was immune. She killed the girl because of mercy. The poor girl had gone insane, and she didn't want to see the suffering anymore.

Everyone was dead now. They had tried to bring her back under control and she killed them. Most of them were killed with just her hands. She had obtained a knife and a gun too. A weapon in each hand. Extra bullets were in her pocket. Blood stained her combat clothes. She was all messed up and didn't care.

She broke down the door to Dr. Johnson's office and got on his computer. She wanted to find her files. The crazy bastard recorded everything and she wanted help remembering who she was. She wanted help remembering her name.

Subject 2239

Real name: April Brooks

Height: 5'11"

Weight: 132

Parents: Joe and Lacey Brooks

Brother: Phil Brooks

Hometown: Chicago

Date Acquired: April 7, 2001

Strength, speed and stealth is what 2239 is best at. She will be ideal for defense deployment and covert operations. The refusal to talk or communicate with us in general will make it difficult for her to do undercover work. Also…

April Brooks. Now she remembered. She saved the file on a disk and collected some video tapes with her I.D. number on them. She figured they could be useful.

"Lilac one," Dr. Johnson said. He sounded pissed. "Stand down right now."

She laughed as she turned around. The sound was foreign to her own ears. "Lilac not here," she told him. "Not Lilac, not 2239. April. April Brooks."

Dr. Johnson took a step back. This had been the most she had talked in years. "April just stop a minute and--"

She didn't let him finish that sentence. She lunged at him and drove the knife into his throat. Blood sprayed everywhere, but she just kept on stabbing him over and over again until her arm got tired. Taking deep breaths, she got back up. She cleaned herself up, took all his money, his car keys and everything he had on her. "I go home now," she told his dead body. "I go home."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

CM Punk met up with Rob, Sandman, Tommy, Jeff and Matt at a restaurant the next day. To tell the truth, he really didn't feel like going at all. He had a headache and he hadn't gotten much sleep. But he went anyway because…well he didn't actually know why.

"Dude, did you guys check out that new Neidheart girl?" Rob asked after they ordered their food. "She's freaking hot."

"Yeah, but she seems like a bitch," Matt commented.

Sandman snorted. "A bitch? Believe me, compared to my ex-wife, this girl is going to be a saint." He grinned. "Did I tell you guys what went down between her and Candice last weekend?"

"Candice bitch slapped the hell out of Lori," Tommy explained. He looked at his friend. "What I want to know is, how the hell did you get Candice Michelle? She's gorgeous and…just look at you man!"

Punk rolled his eyes. "Dreamer, Candice doesn't care that our resident drunk looks like he's been beaten with a stick too many times. She's too nice for her own good." He turned to Rob. "And why are we talking about this anyway? It's not like you're getting with any of the divas. You're married."

"Marriage doesn't mean I can't appreciate the scenery," Rob replied. "Besides, I wanted to bring the divas up because you need a girlfriend."

Punk groaned. Not this subject again. "For the last time, I don't need a girlfriend!"

"Yes you do. Tommy and I are married, Jeff's engaged, Matt's dating Eve and Sandman is fucking around with Candice, who's nearly half his age. Let's face it dude, you are the only one at this table not getting any satisfaction."

"He's probably getting some self satisfaction," Jeff commented.

Sandman and Tommy spit out their beers as they laughed. Punk glared at Jeff. "You just shut up over there. My masturbation is none of your business."

"It is if you're thinking about me as you do it," Jeff replied.

Matt smacked Jeff. "You just need to stop talking. Seriously, what has gotten into you and Shawn lately? You two are acting like complete idiots."

Punk looked around the restaurant as the two brothers started arguing. Halfway across the room he saw Maria, Mickie and Ashley eating and having a good time.

"Man, you have got to stop obsessing about her," Rob said. "Maria's a sweet girl and all, but things just don't work between you two."

"I'm not obsessing," Punk lied. The truth was that he had been depressed ever since they broke up. He knew it was partly his fault because he kept the April thing from her, and when he got depressed about April, it made Maria think that he wasn't happy with her. Pile that on to other problems that they were having and things turned into a disaster. "I've got to go get some air," he said.

"Great, now you've upset him," he heard Sandman tell Rob. "I hope your happy now. He's probably going to get really depressed and turn into another fucking Raven."

_I'm not that bad_, Punk thought as he left. He just wanted to be alone. Was that so hard to ask.

"Phil! Phil wait!"

Apparently it was. He turned around and saw that Maria was chasing after him. "What?"

She stopped, a flash of hurt going through her eyes at his tone. "Are you alright?"

He shrugged. "Sure. Why wouldn't I be?"

She sighed. "Phil, please don't do this. I know you're lying to me."

"Then I guess this shouldn't be much of a change." Punk regretted the words as soon as he said them. "Maria--"

"Just stop Phil!" she exclaimed. "Don't say you're sorry because we both know that's not going to change anything." She took a deep breath to calm herself down. It didn't really work that well. "I gave you everything Phil. You know everything about me. But every time I tried to find out about you, you just pushed me away. What's so bad about you that you couldn't let me in?"

"It's not who I am, it's what I did," he said. "And what I didn't do."

"Well what was it?" she yelled. "You owe me the truth."

There was no way he could tell her. How in the hell could he admit that he was the scourge of his family because they all blamed him for April's disappearance? How could he admit that he thought they were right? The answer was simple: he didn't. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "I really am." Then he took off running.

000

Chicago was different yet still the same. It was confusing to April. She wandered around the streets, trying to remember how the hell to get to her house. "Here house, come here house," she said under her breath.

She walked around for three hours before she finally found it. By then it was night time and she was starting to get a little cold. The front door was locked so she kicked it down. But as soon as she stepped in, she knew nobody had lived there for years. "Mommy?" she said quietly. "Daddy?"

No answer. She closed the front door and slumped down on the ground. Where was everybody? Had she come all this way for nothing? The very thought of it made her want to cry and kill somebody all at the same time.

She got up and left the house. She couldn't stay there; no answers could be learned there. She walked around some more, eventually ending up in grocery store. Buying things weren't on the agenda; she just didn't know where else to go.

She just happened to walk by the secluded magazine area. Nothing caught her eye until she spotted a wrestling almanac. Curious, she picked it up and skimmed through it. It wasn't until the wrestler's real names that she stopped dead in her tracks.

CM Punk's real name was Phil Brooks. Holy shit, she had just found her brother. Thinking quickly, she picked up a WWE magazine and looked through it until she found a picture of him. Yeah, it was definitely Phil. He was older and his hair had grown out, but she could tell it was him.

"Miss, can I help you with something?" the manager asked.

She looked at him and cocked her head to the side. "I find my brother. I go to him now."

He frowned. "What?"

She rolled her eyes. She wasn't going to repeat herself. Her message had been clear the first time. She pushed past him and started to walk out.

"Miss, you can't take those magazines without paying for them."

Oh yeah, she forgot. She dug in her pocket and threw a five dollar bill at him. "There. I go now."

"Miss that's not enough."

She growled and swung a bladed hand at his throat. It connected, and the loss of oxygen caused him to faint. "I don't like you," she told him. "You sleep or I kill you." With that, she got out of there before anyone else got a good look at her.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Airport security was not ready for a trained assassin that was determined to sneak on their plane. April slipped past everybody easily and was hiding out in the cargo hold. She could have just a bought a plane ticket but that would have meant leaving her gun behind. That was just something she didn't want to do. She wanted her mother fucking gun.

Of course she didn't actually _need_ it. But seven years of being made to do things she didn't want had taken their toll. Things were going to be done her way, and that was all she had to say on that.

She laid down on the floor. It was hot and uncomfortable in here. She tried to focus her mind on other things. Phil was the first thing that popped up. Her big brother Phil. Would he remember who she was? Would he believe that it was really her? Would he believe all the things she could do now?

_That last part will be easy enough to prove. Who else but an assassin can kill like I can?_

Somehow that last part didn't comfort her at all. To tell the truth, she didn't really want to tell anybody what had happened to her. What would be the point? Nobody could change anything. She guessed she would just decide what to do when the time came.

She dozed off and on for the rest of the flight. Three hours later, the plane landed at her intended destination. She hid in the shadows and snuck off while the people who came to unload the plane were distracted. Now all she had to do was find Phil and everything would be alright.

000

Punk walked down the streets by himself. It was a cold and rainy but he didn't care. The weather fit his mood at the moment. Sure, he knew if he didn't snap out of this depression soon he would go insane and take everyone down with him, but he needed some more serious brooding time before he could move on.

"GET OFF OF ME!" he heard Maria scream. There was anger in her voice but the fear was more obvious. Concerned, he ran to find her.

She was being cornered behind a building by four large men. She was fighting them off the best she could but she was no match for them. He grabbed one of them and threw him against the wall. He ducked a punch from the second one and kicked him in the stomach.

One of the other two hit him from behind with a lead pipe. He went down and three of them began to kick the shit out of him while the fourth one held a screaming Maria back. Fighting them from where he was at didn't do any good so he tried to protect himself the best he could.

"Run! Call the police!" Maria screamed at someone.

"Little girl, I would stay right there if--" the rest of his sentence was cut off by gunfire. The other three stopped kicking Punk and turned around, only to get shot down in quick succession.

"Phil!" Maria yelled. She ran over to him with tears of concern streaming down her face. "Oh my God, Phil, are you alright?"

Punk groaned. His nose was bloody and his entire body ached. "Oh shit, I just got my ass kicked." He stopped and tried to catch his breath. "How are you? Did they hurt you?"

She shook her head. "They tried but they didn't get very far."

"Good," he said in relief. He sat up and saw the person who had saved them. It was a girl that couldn't have been older than seventeen. She had really long black hair that was wild and untamed. She was tall and extremely pale; he thought she either had been deprived of sunlight, or she was part albino or something like that. The gun was still in her hands and she was now staring at him. There was something about her that was familiar, but he couldn't put his finger on it. "Uh…hi," he said awkwardly.

The girl cocked her head to the side. She put up her hand and waved a little.

"What if she's dangerous?" Maria whispered to Punk. "She just shot these guys without any question. What if she's like some crazy serial killer or something?"

"Okay, you have officially spent way too much time with Jeff," he replied. He stood up slowly, ignoring the throbbing in his head. "So, do you go around shooting people a lot?" he asked the girl. "And do you have a name or something?"

The girl pulled out two candy bars from her pocket and handed one of them to him. He looked down at it. "Your name is Snickers?"

"I was going to get a Snickers that day," the girl said. She seemed to be talking to herself rather than him and Maria. "I wanted to get you one so you would play with me. You liked Snickers. I would have bought you one if you had gone to the gas station if you had gone with me. But I bought you one now to show you I wasn't mad."

Punk stared at her. April always tried to bribe him with Snickers when they were kids. This girl was the right age to be April and she did look very familiar. "April?" he said slowly.

She nodded. "Hi." Then she turned around and ran away.

"April wait!" he yelled. He chased after her, leaving Maria to catch up. He followed her down several dark alleys before catching up with her in an abandoned factory. She was sitting in a corner, rocking back and forth. "April?" he said again. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. It felt like he was going to wake up any moment and this would all be a dream.

"Where did Mommy and Daddy go?" she asked. Her voice sounded like a little girl's. "Why did they leave me? I went back home and nobody was there. One two three four, one two three four…little dead children all lined up in a row. Didn't want to…oh god, there was so much blood." She buried her face in her lap.

He sat down next to her. Gently, he pulled her into a hug. "Where were you?" he asked. "Where did you go?"

"Hell," she replied.

"Phil who is this?" Maria asked. She looked almost jealous.

"It's my sister," he confessed. "She's the secret I've been keeping."

Maria's look softened. "But why? Why would you keep that from me?"

"It's a long story."

"I've got time."

"There's never enough time," April muttered. "There's always tests to be done and numbers to check." She chuckled. "I never used to talk this much. Didn't say a word for three years straight." She said something else but it couldn't be heard by anyone else but her.

Punk picked her up and took her and Maria to his hotel room. April was asleep by the time they got there. He put her down on the bed next to his and tucked her in. The entire situation felt surreal.

He told Maria everything. The day April disappeared, being turned into an outcast by his family, his mom's nervous breakdown that led to her suicide, his dad's car accident that might not have been an accident, and every other little ugly detail. They sat in silence for a little while after that, because there was really nothing to say.

"Phil I'm sorry," Maria said. "For you know everything that happened. And not just about the stuff that happened when you were a kid. I'm sorry about what happened between us."

Punk nodded. "Yeah, I am too." He looked over at April. "I have to take her on the road with me."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"That's the only idea. I have no relatives that'll talk to me. And even if they would, she came to find _me._ I owe it to her to take care of her this time."

Maria nodded in understanding. "Okay." She paused. "Do you think I could stay with you tonight? I don't want to be alone tonight."

"Sure," Phil agreed. They laid down on his bed and he held her until they both fell asleep.

000

It began to storm that night. April woke up to a very loud crash of thunder. She took a few deep breaths. She hadn't heard a storm for seven years and she had forgotten how much they scared her. She crawled out of bed and stood in front of the window, the gun clutched tightly in her hand. "Come on," she dared the thunder. "Come on it and try me." She stood perfectly still, completely focused on protecting herself from the threat outside. She didn't move an inch or blinked at all, and this was how Punk and Maria found her the next day.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Punk and Maria had a hard time getting April to get on the plane. She did not seem eager to sit with other people. For some reason, the cargo hold sounded more appealing to her. Punk wasn't sure what to think of that. He had no idea where she had been or what had been done to her. He knew he needed to ask, but he was afraid to. He wouldn't be able to stand it if she told him she had been molested or something like that. That was selfish of him, but he still couldn't bring himself to do it yet. Besides, he reasoned that asking her while they were on an airplane wasn't the best idea. He could do it while they were alone somewhere.

"Holy shit dude, are you a pimp now?" Sandman asked. He, Candice and Tommy were in the seats in front of them.

Punk frowned. "Uh…no. Why would you think that?"

"Well you've got Maria back and now you've got some other chick with you that hasn't blinked for the past ten minutes."

Punk looked at April. She was staring out the window, not blinking at all, just like Sandman had said. It was one of the many mannerisms she had picked up that were kind of scary. She didn't blink often, she didn't talk a lot, she surveyed any area they were in like she was checking for threats…not to mention she had just shot a bunch of people last night.

"That's his sister April," Maria told Sandman. "She hasn't been on a plane before."

"Wait, Punk has a sister? When the hell did that happen?"

"A long time ago. The whole thing's just complicated so stop asking questions."

"How is it complicated? His parents got horny one night…"

Thankfully Candice put her hand over Sandman's mouth. "Honey that's enough. You're going to embarrass him."

Tommy chuckled. "This is nothing. You should have heard how he explained the birds and the bees to Tyler. The poor kid couldn't look him or Lori in the eye for two weeks after that."

April finally looked away from the window. "Birds and bees can't fornicate. Your analogy does not make sense."

Tommy frowned. "It was just an expression."

She shrugged. "It still doesn't make sense."

Punk sighed. "Not all sayings make sense April. Just go with it."

She cocked her head at him. "Alright. The blonde man is drunker than a skunk."

Sandman grinned. "There you go. Now you're getting it." He offered her his beer. "Want a drink?"

Maria slapped his hand. "She's not old enough."

"So? I was younger than her when I started drinking."

"And that's not a good thing," Punk said. "So keep the alcohol to yourself."

Sandman shrugged and did what he was told. Tommy decided to steer the conversation to a different topic. "Are you getting your rematch against Chavo yet?"

Punk shook his head. "No. Estrada is putting me in a tag match with Kane against Miz and Morrison. I swear, I'm going to throttle Chavo when I get my hands on him. That little bastard stole my belt."

000

April snuck off alone after they got to the arena. She was on the hunt for somebody named Chavo. He had stolen Phil's belt. Now she may have been locked up for seven years, but she was sure robbery was still against the law. Then again, so was murder, but she wasn't going to get into that.

She consulted her magazine for help. She took a good look at Chavo's picture. Damn he was ugly. Using all her skills, she stuck to the shadows and stalked her away all around the building. She found him by himself in his dressing room.

Tired of subtlety, she barged right into his room. He jumped a foot in the air. "What the hell are you doing?" he demanded.

"You stole Phil's belt," she growled. She began to pound the hell out of Chavo's face. "That's not nice." She picked him up and threw him through the wall. "You are a bad man." She saw the belt on the table and took it. "I give it back."

Really, why would someone steal a belt? Sure it was nice belt but it wasn't like it was real gold. Or was it? April didn't know. What she did know was that Phil couldn't have looked more shocked than when she handed him the belt. "This is yours," she told him. "I got it back for you."

Punk stared at her. "How did you--"

"Chavo go down."

He sighed. "Oh fuck, Estrada is going to throw a shit fit."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Estrada did indeed throw a shit fit. Actually, it was even bigger than a shit fit; there were no words to describe how badly he freaked out. Apparently his champion getting beaten to a pulp by a girl was not part of his agenda. He freaked out so badly that he ordered a match between April and Chavo's bodyguard Bam Neeley. Then April had to go and accept it before CM Punk could even object! This was not turning out well at all.

"You don't _have_ to do this," Punk said for what felt like the millionth time. "Estrada can't make you do this; you're not a wrestler."

"Don't need to be," April replied. She was already heading towards the entrance ramp. "I just need to fight."

"No, you need to stay backstage where its safe."

"Too late, I'm already here."

Punk sighed as his entrance music came on. This was going to be bad. This was going to be very bad.

XXX

April had no idea just how nervous Phil was about all this. She was too busy staring a hole right through Bam Neeley. In her eyes, Chavo's "bodyguard" was nothing more than a glorified bully. And if she remembered right, bullies were bad. Very bad. But nothing she couldn't handle.

Chavo wasn't at ringside. Estrada said she did so much damage to him that the trainers were taking him to the hospital. But she knew better than that. She had seen him leave the building on his own, probably embarrassed that he got his ass kicked by a girl. She wondered if he would feel as embarrassed if he knew about all the other men's asses she had kicked over the years.

The bell rang, signaling the start of the match. Bam started out by shoving her as hard as he could. She took a step back, but didn't fall as he probably hoped. He came at her again, this time with punches. She dodged all of them easily. This was obviously going to be boring, so she decided to end it early. She grabbed Bam's arm, snapped it like a twig, and knocked him down with a bladed hand to the throat. As he laid there unconscious, she put her foot on his chest. "Count," she growled at the referee.

The referee did just that, obviously afraid by how fast she just did that. She probably shouldn't have taken Bam out so easily now that she thought of it. This little display would no doubt bring attention on herself. Oh well--what was done was done. There was no going back now.

She looks out at Phil. He was looking at her in shock. What had just happened was the total opposite of what he was obviously expecting. _Now he'll want an explanation_, a voice in the back of her head scolded. _Are you prepared to give him that? Are you prepared for the guilt he'll feel?_

The answer to that was no. She wasn't prepared to tell him everything that had happened to her. But as of right now, it didn't look like she was going to have much of a choice.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The car ride back to the hotel was very, very quiet. Neither Phil or Maria knew what to say to April about her amazing display against Bam Neeley. It was almost too amazing for Punk's taste. Not that he wasn't glad that April was alright; it was just that…well, the way she took the bastard down had been too easy to be real. She should have had more trouble. There should have been more of a fight.

"How did you do it?" he finally asked April when they were in the safety of their hotel room.

April grabbed her bag and held it close to her chest. "You don't want to know Phil," she warned him quietly.

But Phil did want to know. He needed to know. In the course of the past twenty four hours he had seen her shoot four guys and beat up two wrestlers. He needed to know what was going on with her. "Just talk to me April," he pleaded. "Come on, you know you can tell me anything."

That didn't reassure April at all. She just began to rock back and forth, clutching the bag to her chest and mumbling incoherently. Phil reached out to touch her shoulder but she let out a shriek and scooted away from him.

"Maybe you're pushing her too much," Maria said quietly.

"How am I pushing her too much? All I asked was a simple question?" Phil nearly yelled in frustration. He didn't know what to do. Maybe he was expecting too much too soon. But how was he going to help his little sister if he didn't find out what had happened to her?

April took several deep breaths. She was trying to calm herself down. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Phil sighed. "I WILL believe you April. I know you think I won't, but I will."

"Fine," April finally said. She opened the bag and pulled out a video tape. "See it to believe it."

Phil took the tape and glanced at Maria. She looked just as clueless as he felt. With a shrug, he put the tape in and sat down on the bed.

_After a few moments of darkness, April appeared on screen. It couldn't have been very long after her disappearance, because she looked to be about eleven. She was strapped down to a chair with various electrodes placed all over her head. She also had an IV in each arm, which were connected to bags filled with some unknown substance._

"What the hell is this?" Maria asked.

"Original experiments," April muttered. She was pulling out more tapes and computer disks from her bag. "I didn't look at the tape before I gave it to you. Should have done that. This will not be pleasant."

"April--"

"Shush Phil. You wanted to know. We must be quiet or the doctors will be very upset."

Phil didn't like the way she was talking. He didn't like it at all. But he didn't say anything else, because a man in a lab coat appeared on screen.

"Dr. Johnson," April clarified. Her voice was filled with pure hatred.

_"Today is April 18, 2001," Dr. Johnson said. He had a high pitched nasal voice that set Phil the wrong way immediately. "I will be starting my first round of treatment for Subject 2239. The treatment will last approximately twenty three hours a day for the next seven days. If I choose to rest in a time besides our one hour break, my assistant Dr. Landau will take over. The IV's will not be removed under any circumstances and only death will stop the experiment." He placed the clipboard down and pulled something out of his pocket that had a red button on it. "I think we're ready to get started."_

_April, who had been silently crying the entire time, began screaming horribly as soon as he pressed the button. She jerked around as violently as the restraints allowed her to do. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and the pain seemed to be consuming her very soul…_

"Stop it!" April suddenly shouted, scaring the shit out of a horrified Phil and Maria. She began banging her head against the floor and yanking her own hair out. "Stop it stop it stop it stop it STOP IT!"

Maria leaped off the bed and took the tape out as Phil grabbed a hold of his sister. "It's okay," he tried to assure her. "It's okay, we took the tape out, you're safe."

April shook her head. "No! I can still feel them! Electricity burning the skin poison in my blood and they CUT OPEN MY BRAIN! DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT PHIL? THEY CUT OPEN MY BRAIN AND PLAYED WITH IT AFTER THAT!" She collapsed into tears, not caring if the entire hotel heard her. Just seeing a few moments of the tape had affected her in ways she had not anticipated.

Phil held her carefully, completely thrown for a loop. He had no idea why any of what was on the tape happened. He just knew that the bastards had hurt her. They had hurt her real bad. "April I swear to you, that man won't hurt you anymore."

"Of course he won't," she said. She suddenly sounded calm again. "I killed him. He can't hurt anybody anymore."

Phil frowned. "You did what?"

April pulled away and looked him in the eyes. "I killed him. I killed them all. I was rebuilt to kill. The torture, the surgeries, the hypnosis--all of it molded me into their assassin. He molded me into the perfect weapon. But he didn't realize I was already perfect and he kept going because he wanted more. He made a hole in his power and I broke free. I had my mind again. It took seven years but I had control of myself again. So I pretended to be what they wanted me to be and I made them feel safe. They didn't see me coming." She laughed. "Johnson was sick. He made me kill innocent people. I don't know why. It could be on one of the disks I stole. But he lost control and I killed him for it. I got my vengeance."

"Go April," Maria muttered.

This whole thing was scaring the shit out of Phil. Part of him wanted to believe there was no way she was telling the truth. Nobody could turn his baby sister into some kind of killer. But what he just saw of that tape and the sincerity in April's words made him believe the awful truth. This was real, it had happened and now they had to deal with the consequences of it.

"I don't want to watch anymore," she said. She sounded like the child she had been, once upon a time. "I don't want to look anymore, I don't want to see what they made of me."

"Okay," Phil agreed. He pulled her back into his arms, desperate to keep her from crying again. "We don't have to do anything you don't want to." But as he was making this promise, he knew what he had to do on his own. He had to watch the tapes and look at the disks to see the full of extent of what had been done to his April.


	7. Chapter 7

_Dr. Johnson was standing in front of April, who was strapped down to a chair again. "The date is August 9, 2002," he said, not looking up from his clipboard. "The time is 10:47 a.m. Subject 2239 will once again go through a round of endurance training as preparation for the mission she will be sent on within the next thirty six hours."_

_"Just hold steady," April muttered. "Hold steady and the pain will pass."_

_Dr. Johnson frowned. "What significance this has to 2239 is still unknown."_

_"Because you're a fucking idiot." That earned her a slap across the face._

_"Obviously she still has some fight left in her. That'll change soon enough though."_

_"It won't. Bones can break but I'm unbreakable."_

_"We'll see about that. Dr. Boden, will you come in here please?"_

_A blonde woman wearing a white jacket came in holding a flaming branding iron. April didn't look surprised to see her at all. "I'm not going to break," she announced. "You're wasting your time."_

_"We'll see about that," Dr. Johnson replied. "Dr. Boden, you may proceed."_

XXXXX

It was Maria who once again turned off the tape. "This is insane," she said to Phil. "April told us enough about what they did to her. Watching them torture her is just insane."

Phil sighed. "Maria, you don't get it. She's my sister. I have to see exactly what they did to her so I can fix it."

"You can't fix it for her. She has to come to terms with it herself."

"How is she supposed to do that?"

"I don't know. But you know I'm right about this, even if you don't want to admit it."

He knew that of course. Maria was a lot more intelligent than people gave her credit for. Still, it was hard to accept that he couldn't just magically make this all better. Even though April was now seventeen, she was still his baby sister. He was supposed to protect her and keep her safe from harm. He looked over at her. She was curled up in the other bed, deeply asleep at this point. "When I look at her, I still see her as the eleven year old that disappeared," he confessed.

Maria hugged him sympathetically. "I know you do. But she's not that little girl. She has gone through something we can't even begin to truly comprehend. She's going to have to deal with this and all we can do is be there for her the best we can."

Phil closed his eyes. "You know that stuff she was saying in the tape? The stuff about holding steady and the pain will pass?"

"Yeah."

"I told her that once. She was eight years old and she broke her leg falling out of a tree. She was crying a whole bunch and on the way to the hospital I told her to just hold it steady, because the pain will pass." He opened his eyes and gave Maria a small smile. "She did it and she stopped crying." He squeezed Maria's hand tightly. "Who knew that advice would come in handy for her again?"

The two of them were silent for a long time. "We can't let her wrestle again if we can help it," Maria finally said. "That incident with Bam Neeley is going to be raising questions that are too dangerous to answer."

Phil couldn't disagree with that. The whole bit about April being an assassin was going to have to stay a secret. It was too dangerous for people to know about, just like it was too dangerous to have her wrestling again. There was no telling just how strong she really was.

And there was no telling how dangerous she could get if she felt like she was actually being threatened by somebody else.


	8. Chapter 8

April swayed from side to side in her chair. Phil was out in the ring wrestling some guy named William Regal in something called a Money in the Bank qualifying match. Now what money in a bank had to do with wrestling was beyond her comprehension. Were the wrestlers in the tournament getting more money or something? Or were they competing for an actual bank? And why would they even want a bank? Or was she taking the name of the match at face value and it was about something else all together? Ugh, professional wrestling was so confusing.

"Are you okay?" Maria asked suddenly.

April stopped swaying for a moment. Was she okay? She didn't really know. What was okay anyway? Did she even know that anymore? "Phil wrestles on ECW. This is not that show."

"I know, but it's good for him to wrestle on Raw. It gets him more exposure."

"Oh." April started swaying again. "Why am I not allowed to watch Phil's match?"

That question caught Maria off guard. "Oh, um…well you see…"

"You think I'll go out there and try to protect him," April interrupted. She had come to this conclusion awhile ago. She was just trying to make small talk. "You think I'll hurt anyone who touches him."

Maria nodded. "The night you came back--"

"I shot those men. They were bad men. I don't feel guilty for that. I don't feel guilty for killing the doctors that hurt me. But I do feel guilty for other things. I feel guilty for the innocent people I had to kill. There were children. They were small. Bullets ripped through their bodies. Blood was everywhere. The necks snapped like twigs." April shuddered as she replayed that memory in her mind. It was the worst thing she had ever had to do.

Maria gulped. "What children April? What did the doctors make you do?"

"The doctors took me down to Costa Rica. I don't know why they did it. They put me in a school and triggered me. My mission was to kill everybody there. There was nothing to retrieve, no information to retain. It was just a killing spree. I have nightmares about it still. I wanted to kill myself once I realized what I had done." She started to cry. "The bodies were so small…"

"Oh April," Maria said. She pulled April into her arms and held her tightly.

Phil came back a few minutes later and found them in the embrace. "What's going on?" he asked. "Why are you crying April?"

"It's nothing," April said quickly. She wiped her tears away. She didn't want Phil to know about the incident with school children. She wasn't ready to tell him that yet. "Just stuff's been bottled up. Had to let go a little."

Maria gave Phil a look to not push it and he heeded that warning. "Okay then," he said, trying to sound cheerful. He looked at Maria. "Ashley and Mickie are looking for you. They want to talk about some woman problem thing. I don't know, it just sounded disgusting so I tuned them out."

Maria winced. "Well damn, that means I'm not going to want to hear about it either." She let go of April and kissed Phil on the cheek. "If I'm not back by the time you're ready to leave, come get me."

"Okay," Phil agreed.

April waved as Maria left. She liked Maria. Maria was nice. She didn't know a whole lot of nice people. "Are you going to marry her?"

Phil's head turned toward her so fast she was surprised that his neck didn't snap. "What?" he squeaked out.

April cocked her head to the side. "Your voice made a funny noise." She giggled. "Do it again."

Phil sunk down in the nearest chair. "Good grief April, why would you ask that kind of question? Are you trying to give me a heart attack or something?"

"Why would that question give you a heart attack? Aren't you and Maria together?"

"Yes…I think so anyway. It's complicated."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why is it complicated?"

"It just is!" Phil exclaimed. He looked very uncomfortable. "I mean, we've been spending a whole lot of time together so I think that means we're back together. But I don't want to say we're back together because I haven't even talked to her about it."

"So talk to her. Hell, I've been kept in a lab for seven years and even I know you should do that."

Phil rolled his eyes. "Okay, okay, I'll talk to her."

"Good." April once again went back to swaying in her chair. "So do I get to wrestle again?"

"No!" Phil said quickly. He glared at her. "Once was enough."

April could accept that. She kept swaying, not really sure why she was even doing it. A few minutes later someone knocked on the door.

"Who the hell can that be?" Phil muttered. He got up and answered it. "Oh, hey Cena."

April stopped swaying and stared at the former WWE champion. He was shirtless and it made her feel a little hot and bothered. "Holy crap," she muttered.

John grinned at her. "So this is the mysterious April Brooks. Everybody's been talking about you kid."

"Oh God no," Phil said quietly. He paused when he realized John had heard him. "What? Excuse me for not wanting my sister to be the talk of the locker room."

John chuckled. "It's okay man. I would feel the same way if it was my sister. Anyway, I was hoping to talk you into being my tag team partner next week. I'm facing Orton, Triple H and their partners and I need someone I know will back me up."

Phil nodded. "Okay. I'm down with that."

April grinned. That meant she was probably going to see John again, which was good. But first, she just had to do one thing. Just one little thing…

"April!" Phil yelled as she got up and just started touching John without even asking. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Your arms are very big," she told John. "They're nice."

"Uh…thanks," John said uncertainly. "I guess. This is probably the weirdest way a girl has ever flirted with me."

"She's not flirting with you!" Phil exclaimed.

"I think I am," April said. She smiled at John. "From what I can see, your body is very well proportioned. That probably means you're very well proportioned in other places too."

Phil made an incomprehensible high pitched noise as he pulled April away from John. "Just go," he ordered John. "I'll talk to you later."

"Bye!" April called after John. She looked at Phil. "I like him."

Phil glared at her. "Don't you ever do that again."

"Why?"

"Because it's one thing dealing with a teenage girl that's an assassin. I can handle that. But a teenage girl chasing after boys…" He paused and shuddered. "Now THAT is fucking terrifying."


	9. Chapter 9

April stared at the TV intently. It had been a long time since she had watched one, and she was watching some show that had a talking cartoon sponge in it. Phil was taking a nap in his room. The flight back to Chicago had given him jet lag. Maria was off visiting her sister, so there was nobody to keep April company. This was strange for her, because she hadn't been completely unsupervised for such a long time. She found it kind of nice though. As much as she liked Phil and Maria, they worried too much about her. They were always watching her, trying to make sure she wouldn't get into trouble. It bothered her more than she cared to admit.

She got up and shut off the TV. She didn't want to watch it anymore. What she needed was some fun. She briefly considered going upstairs to tell Phil she was going out, but then she decided against it. There was no way he would let her go off by herself. So she put on her shoes and slipped quietly out the front door.

Freedom really was a wonderful thing. People didn't really understand that unless they had theirs taken away from them. April let out a giant whoop and did a couple cartwheels. She wasn't afraid of being kidnapped again. She knew she could take care of herself now.

A stoplight caught her attention. Without even thinking she climbed up on top of it. The cars kept going right on by, either not noticing or not caring about her. She waited until a semi-truck drove by and then did a back flip down to the top of it. She landed perfectly on her feet, not even losing her balance once. "I could get used to this," she said under her breath. She liked the feeling of riding on top of the giant truck. It made her feel like she was on top of the world.

She rode on top of the truck until it stopped at a stoplight about two miles away. Then the sound of music caught her attention. She looked around and saw a group of kids sitting around a car in the nearby park. The music was probably coming from the radio in their car. Curious, she jumped off the truck and went over there.

**I wake up every evening  
With a big smile on my face  
And it never feels out of place  
And you're still probably workin'  
At a 9 to 5 pace  
I wonder how bad that tastes**

She grabbed an abandoned basketball and started shooting some hoops. She was close enough where she could hear the music perfectly. The song was definitely catchy, and it was different from the harder sounded stuff Phil usually listened to.

**When you see my face  
Hope it gives you hell  
Hope it gives you hell**  
**When you walk my way  
Hope it gives you hell  
Hope it gives you hell**

She began to bop her head along with the song. She already knew it was going to be stuck in her head for the rest of the day, but she didn't mind. Maybe it would take her mind off her crappy basketball skills.

**Now where's your pickett fence, love?  
And where's that shiny car?  
It didn't ever get you far  
You never seemed so tense, love  
I've never seen you fall so hard  
Do you know where you are?**

And truth be told, I miss you  
And truth be told, I'm lyin'  


**When you see my face  
Hope it gives you hell  
Hope it gives you hell  
When you walk my way  
Hope it gives you hell  
Hope it gives you hell  
If you find a man  
That's worth a damn  
And treats you well  
Then he's a fool  
You're just as well  
Hope it gives you hell  
I hope it gives you hell**

Her mind started wandering towards John. She hadn't been able to get her mind off of him. He was haunting her dreams, making her feel an aching and longing she didn't understand. She definitely had to ask Maria about this. All Phil was going to do was freak out and start complaining about hormones.

**Now you'll never see  
What you've done to me  
You can take back your memories  
They're no good to me  
And here's all your lies  
You can look me in the eyes  
With the sad, sad look  
That you wear so well**

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a man coming towards her. There was something about him that put her on edge. She knew him from somewhere. She had seen him before. He was a bad man. Who in the hell was he?

**When you see my face  
Hope it gives you hell  
Hope it gives you hell  
When you walk my way  
Hope it gives you hell  
Hope it gives you hell  
When you find a man  
That's worth a damn  
And treats you well  
Then he's a fool  
You're just as well  
Hope it gives you hell**

Then she remembered. He knew Dr. Johnson. His name was Samuel Price and he helped with the funding for the experiments. He had come to the lab to see the results of his spending. She remembered hating him automatically and swearing to killing him one day.

**When you see my face  
Hope it gives you hell  
Hope it gives you hell  
(Hope it gives you hell)  
When you walk my way  
Hope it gives you hell  
Hope it gives you hell  
(Hope it gives you hell)  
When you hear this song  
And you sing along  
But you never tell  
(You never tell)  
Then you're a fool  
I'm just as well  
Hope it gives you hell  
(Hope it gives you hell)  
When you hear this song  
I hope that it will give you hell  
(Hope it gives you hell)  
When you sing along  
I hope that it puts you through hell **

She put down the ball and started walking away like she hadn't seen him. The idiot kept following her, not realizing he had already been spotted. She walked to the public restrooms halfway across the park and went inside the Women's one. This part of the park was abandoned, so she was fairly sure he was going to follow her in. She ducked into the nearest stall and waited.

After a few minutes, she was proven right. He came in, and stopped right in front of her stall. She pulled her gun out of her pocket, bent down, pointed it out from the bottom of the stall and fired. The bullet hit him right in the leg, causing him to cry out in pain.

"You're not very smart, are you Pierce?" she asked. She shot him in both of his hands as he reached for his own gun. "You're supposed to stay out of sight when you're trying to sneak up on people." She grabbed his gun and pocketed it.

Pierce looked up at her hatefully. "So it's true. You are alive."

"Anyone else know?"

"The other investors and I went to the lab a week ago. We found the bodies that you left behind. We knew you had to be alive, but your files were gone. But now I know where you are and the others will too."

April shook her head. "Actually, they won't find out. Not from you anyway. You should have called them before allowing yourself to be seen." She shot him twice in the head without even blinking. He was dead after the first bullet entered his brain, but she shot twice just to be sure he died. Then she put her gun away and walked out like nothing had happened. "When you see my face, hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell," she sang under her breath. "When you walk my way, hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell." If Phil asked, she planned on leaving out the whole killing a guy part of the adventure. He didn't need to worry more than he already did.


	10. Chapter 10

Phil woke up to discover April was gone. Dread and fear instantly took him over. "Oh no, not again," he moaned. He began searching the house desperately. "April! APRIL!" There was no answer. She was long gone. Where in the hell could she have gone? How could he have fallen asleep, especially considering that she got kidnapped the last time he did that? Oh God, what if something happened to her again?

At that moment, April walked in the door. "Hi Phil," she said happily.

"Where in the hell have you been?" Phil asked angrily. As happy and relieved to see he was okay, he was furious that she had run off by herself. "I've been worried sick about you!"

"I just went for a walk."

"A walk, huh? Without telling me?"

"You were asleep!" she whined. "And you wouldn't have let me go anyway."

"You're damn right I wouldn't have," he snapped. "Jesus April, you've been kidnapped once already. You really want that to happen again?"

"It's not going to happen again Phil!" she protested. "I won't let it happen again!"

Phil shook his head. "You don't know that April. People could be looking for you. What if those doctors were hurting you for a reason? What if somebody else knows about the experiments and they want to find you?"

"Let them come," April said defiantly. She pulled out two guns and held them up. "Let's see them try to take me back."

"Where did you get that?" Phil asked, pointing to the second gun. He had seen her with the first one before, but not that second one.

"It's not relevant," she replied. She tried to walk past him but he grabbed her arm and stopped her.

"It is relevant," he insisted. "Something happened to you when you were out, didn't it?"

She pulled her arm out of his grip. "It's nothing you need to worry about. I've taken care of things." She went upstairs to her room before he could stop her.

"Shit!" Phil cursed. He kicked the couch, hurting is little toe in the process. "OW! Fucking shit!" He sat down and buried his face in his hands. He had no idea what to do. April was hiding something from him and she was definitely determined to keep it a secret. That made him feel really, really nervous. Something had happened while she was out and he had a bad feeling somebody ended up dead because of it. Now if somebody was trying to take her back to living life as lab rat, he had no issue with her taking them down. He just wished she would tell him about it.

Then there was the police factor. What if April did kill somebody and the police eventually came to suspect her? She had killed the thugs that had attacked him and Maria with no consequence, but that didn't mean that kind of luck would last forever. What would they do if somebody actually tried to arrest her?

April didn't come back downstairs until it was time to eat dinner. And when she did come down, she wasn't speaking to him. She just kept singing The All American Rejects song "Gives You Hell" over and over again.

"So," Phil said, unable to take the uncomfortable silence anymore. "Can't you at least tell me where you were this afternoon?"

"The park," she replied. She refused to look up from her plate.

"Which park?"

"I don't know. It was just a park."

"Did you do anything interesting?"

"I can't tell you."

"Why not?"

"It'll make you worry even more. Your hair is going to turn gray."

Phil's hands immediately went up to his hair. "It will not," he said defensively. "I'm way too young for gray hair."

April looked at him skeptically. "Yeah, but you worry too much."

"Why do you keep saying that? Is that your new song now?"

She shrugged. "You don't let me do anything fun. You're always watching me and making sure I don't go away again."

So she was restless. That was what the running off by herself shit had been about. "I'm supposed to watch out for you," he said. "I don't want you to go away again."

"I said I wasn't going anywhere," she replied.

"You could though."

Neither of them said anything else for the rest of dinner. After they were done eating, Phil went out to the back porch to sit for awhile. The sun was just starting to set and it was surprisingly quiet for some reason. Usually the neighbors were screaming at each other or people walking up the alley were making noise.

April eventually came out and joined him. "I'm sorry I made you worry," she said quietly.

He sighed. "Do you really think I worry too much?"

"Yeah," she admitted. "And I don't worry enough. I just react to things and I don't think about what comes next. I think something is wrong with me."

"Well I personally don't think being a teenager helps," Phil added. He got up and put his arm around her shoulder. "Come on, let's go get some ice cream."


	11. Chapter 11

April was sitting on the floor in the locker room. Phil was trying to get ready for his tag match tonight with John. Maria was supposed to be there watching over April so Phil could go wrestle, but she had hurt her ankle a little bit during her match so she was still getting checked on by the trainers. "Who's coming in here to watch me?" April

asked.

"Sandman and Rob," Phil answered. He finished stretching one leg and started working on the other one. "Now you have to promise to behave yourself and not act too weird. I don't need them asking questions I can't give the answers to."

She glared at him. "I am not weird. You're weird. So suck on those apples, Big Brother."

Sandman, Candice and Rob came into the room before Phil could respond to that. "Hey kid," Sandman said as he ruffled April's hair.

"I'm not a kid," April protested.

"Yeah Sandman, she's not a kid," Rob said. "She's all grown up."

Candice helped April get up to her feet. "Have you been working on that dance I showed you?"

Phil groaned. "Please tell you me you're not talking about what I think you're talking about."

April started doing the sexy dance Candice had taught her to do. It was from something called a GoDaddy commercial. Now what exactly GoDaddy was, April was not sure. But the dance was supposed to be sexy and it was fun to do, so she did it anyway.

Sandman, Rob and John (who had just arrived to get Phil) clapped in appreciation for her efforts. April took a bow and then waved at John. "Hi."

"Hi," John replied. "You having fun here?"

"I'm doing my best."

Phil sighed and walked over to April. "Please be good," he said as he kissed her on the forehead. "Can you do that for me?"

April nodded. "Yeah, I guess so."

That seemed to satisfy him. He and John left, leaving her alone with three babysitters that really wouldn't be able to stop her if she wanted to do something. Not that she was planning on doing something she wasn't supposed to. She didn't want to upset Phil too much.

"You want to watch the match?" Rob asked. He was already turning on the monitor.

April nodded. She really did want to see Phil wrestle. He and Maria still were convinced that she couldn't handle it. This was her chance to prove them wrong.

"So why haven't you wrestled anymore?" Sandman asked as the wrestlers on the screen began to make their entrances. "I saw your match with Bam Neeley. That shit you did to him was awesome. You could make a lot of money beating the shit out of people like that."

"Phil doesn't think it's a good idea," April replied. She didn't take her eyes off of the monitor. "He wants me to be a normal girl."

Candice shook her head. "A normal girl? What's normal anyway?"

April shrugged. "I don't know." She watched the match intently, barely restraining herself from yelling out advice to Phil. Honestly, she saw plenty of opportunities that he could have taken advantage of and put down his opponents for good. Maybe it was a good thing she wasn't allowed to be in any more wrestling matches. All she could think about was taking down other people as quick as possible. She was obviously missing the entertaining the fans part of the wrestling match.

Phil and John won, and they came back to the locker room with Maria, who was feeling better. Candice, Rob and Sandman left, having fulfilled their duty for the night. "Hey, the brakes on my car have been giving me a lot of trouble," John said. "Can you give me a ride back to the hotel?"

"Sure man," Phil said.

April grinned. She was happy to hear that John was riding with them. It would give her a chance to talk to him.

The four of them got their stuff and went out to the parking lot. As they were walking, April noticed a white van near Phil's car. A girl no older than thirteen and a man wearing a white coat was standing by it. They looked up at her and she suddenly knew something bad was about to happen. "Go back in the arena," she told the others. "Now!"

Maria frowned. "But why? What's wrong?"

The man whispered something to the girl and the girl's whole demeanor changed. April recognized it instantly. The girl had been triggered. She was an assassin. Only she was one April had never seen before. She hadn't been in the lab April had been kept in. Which could only mean there had to be more of them out there. _Doesn't this ever stop?_ April thought to herself.

The girl reached for a gun. April was quicker, and she shot the gun out of the girl's hands. She also shot the man while she was at it. He was going to give her some answers, whether he liked it or not.

"April!" Phil yelled. "What the hell are you doing?"

April didn't answer. She pushed the others back as the girl got up to her feet and charged at her. They fought for a few minutes, but April managed to knock her out quite easily. Either the girl's training was not as well done as hers, or the poor thing was on her first mission. Either way, it didn't matter. The girl was no longer a threat at the moment.

The man in the white coat was trying to crawl away. "Where the hell do you think you're going?" April demanded. She hit him on the back of the head with her gun. "You're coming with me you bastard." She turned around and saw that Phil, Maria and John were staring at her in shock. "What? This asshole was going to make the girl kill us. They had to be stopped."

"What, was she like an assassin or something?" John asked.

April nodded. "Yeah, she's an assassin like me. But you can't tell anybody because Phil gets all pissy."

John gave her two thumbs up. "Okay. You're secret dies with me." He looked at Phil. "I kind of wish I had an assassin for a sister. It would solve a boat load of problems."


	12. Chapter 12

April stared down at her two captives. She had found some chains in the back of the white van and had used them to restrain both the doctor and the new girl. Then she had Phil drive all of them to an abandoned warehouse about two blocks from the hotel they were staying at. She needed answers and she needed them now. She had to know how many more girls were out there. She needed to know if there were anymore labs and if there were going to be more people looking for her. She couldn't have them threatening Phil, Maria or John.

"What is your name?" she asked the doctor. She was playing with a knife, making it perfectly clear that she was going to be perfectly willing to use it on him if he didn't answer her questions.

"Dr. Nelson," he said nervously.

"And what's her name?"

"Subject 6356."

She slashed his arm with the knife. "I asked for her name," she growled. "That is not her name." She put the pointy of the knife just centimeters from his left eye. "Now, you're going to tell me her name, or I'm going to get myself a little prize."

"Eliza," Dr. Nelson said. "Eliza Rosenberg."

April looked over at Eliza. Eliza was trying to get out of the chains. She was still in assassin mode, so April didn't feel bad about her being trapped. "Un-trigger her," she ordered. "Now."

"Sea monkey," Dr. Nelson said reluctantly.

"Sea monkey?" John repeated. "That's really random."

Eliza's whole demeanor suddenly changed. She went from being a threat to just being a scared young teenager in about two seconds. "Help me," she begged. "Please help me."

Maria started going over to her to unchain her, but April reached out and grabbed her hand. "Not yet," she said. "Dr. Nelson is going to answer some questions first."

"What makes you think I'm going to do that?" Dr. Nelson said defiantly.

"Uh…well she has the knife," Phil pointed out helpfully.

April got right in Dr. Nelson's face. "You want to know one of the many differences between you and me?" she hissed. "I was made to withstand torture. You haven't. Now you can either tell me what I want to know and I'll kill you quick. Or you can make this difficult, and I'll kill you slowly. You're scum, like the other doctors that made me the way I am today. I'll have no regrets about killing you."

Dr. Nelson gulped. "So much for the experiments being full proof," he muttered.

April chuckled and backhanded him across the face. "Yeah, well, if anyone says anything is full proof, either they're lying or they're full of shit. Now where is the lab you work at?"

"New York City."

"Where's the entrance at?"

"In the subway tunnels, near Times Square. It's two miles from the subway station."

"How many more girls do you have there?"

"Two. We had five, but two of them died."

"Why did you come to the arena tonight? What was your purpose?"

"To bring you down. You know too much. You can't be allowed to live."

"How many more labs are out there?"

"One. It's in Washington D.C."

"What about the government?" Phil asked suddenly. "Do you have any ties to the government?"

"Yes."

April glared at him. This couldn't be good. "What kind of ties?"

"Our investors are high ranking members of the CIA. They hired us to do a job. If we didn't ask questions and just did our job, we were promised a big payoff. They kept their words."

"So they didn't tell you why they wanted you to do this to us?"

"No."

April looked back at the others. "What do you guys think? Do you believe him?"

John shrugged. "I know if I was the CIA, I wouldn't tell a whole bunch of people why I wanted a group of assassins running around. They're going to be in a boat load of trouble if people find out what they've done."

"And I wouldn't lie to you if I was him," Maria added. "You're holding the big scary knife."

April nodded. "Okay." She looked down at Dr. Nelson. "I'm an honest girl. You told me what I wanted to know, now I keep my end of the deal." She grabbed him by the head and snapped his neck.

Phil winced. "Okay, that was disturbing to watch, I'm not going to lie."

"You'll get used to it," April assured him. She unchained Eliza and helped the poor girl to her feet. "Are you going to be okay? You're not going to go all crazy on me, are you?"

Eliza looked at her in amazement. "How do you do it?" she asked. "How do you control yourself?"

April shrugged. "Dr. Johnson messed up somehow. I don't know what he did wrong."

"It could be in one of those disks you stole," Maria pointed out. "He might have documented one of the final experiments he did on you. Maybe we could use it to help Eliza."

April nodded. "Maybe you're right. But we'll have to early. I want to get going as soon as possible."

"Get going for what?" Phil asked.

April looked him in the eyes. "I want to stop this," she told him. "I want to make all of this stop. I'm bringing the fight to them. I'm not hiding anymore."


	13. Chapter 13

"We don't have to do this you know," Phil told April the next morning. They had been up all night looking through the disks she had taken from Dr. Johnson and managed to find the experiment that undid April's trigger. Eliza wanted complete control over herself again, and she was willing to do whatever it took to get it. Officially, the plan was to take down the New York lab first, undo Eliza's trigger and possibly get more girls on their side before going to Washington DC. Personally, Phil thought all of this was way too fucking risky. He did want to help all those girls but he knew they were just painting a huge target on their back by doing all this. Things could only get uglier before they got better.

April just shook her head. "Yes we do and you know it."

"Can we just pretend we don't have to?" he asked pathetically.

"Oh come on Punk," John said cheerfully. "Just pretend you're in an action movie or something."

Maria just shook her head. "You're getting way too into this, you realize that, right?"

"Well what am I supposed to do? We've got assassins and freaky scientists and government conspiracies surrounding us! This is some crazy ass, action movie shit."

Phil considered that. "Well if we are dealing with action movie shit, then what can we expect next? Are a bunch of crazy soldiers going to rush into the hotel and try to take us down? Is a sniper going to try to shoot us through a window?"

April and Eliza looked at each other before quickly gathering all their stuff up. "Everybody take a gun now," April ordered. "We have to get going."

"Wait, I was just joking!" Phil protested as he was handed a gun. There's no way they'll possibly--"

Eliza tackled Maria to the ground just as a bullet came flying through the window. "Holy shit!" John yelled. "What the hell was that?"

"Just our neighborhood friendly sniper," April replied. She opened her bag and pulled out a machine gun. "Okay people, let's crawl the hell out of here."

"Wait a second!" Phil exclaimed. "Where the fuck did you get that?"

"I stole it from the lab when I escaped. Now move it!"

_I have a freaking sticky fingers for a sister_, Phil thought to himself as he vacated the room. They ran down the hallway towards the staircase. Three men wearing black ski masks appeared in front of them. "Drop the weapons and put your hands in the air!" one of them ordered.

April and Eliza opened fire on them without hesitation. "Oh that's great," Maria said shakily. "Let's kill people in the middle of a hallway. That's a great way to get ourselves arrested."

"Well what else are we supposed to do?" April asked as she led them down the stairs. She looked over the railing and fired one more time at another masked man coming at them. "If they get us, we're either going to be in a lab for the rest of our lives or we're dead. Now I don't know about you, I'd rather have them dead."

"We should steal a different car when we get out of here," Eliza said. "They probably planted a bomb in there that will go off as soon as we start it."

"What?" Phil said in disbelief. "Wait, how am I supposed to explain to the rental place that I can't give their car back because there's a bomb in there?"

April shrugged. "That's your problem big brother. I'm only worried about keeping you alive."

_Yeah, well, that's going to be hard if the CIA is after us,_ Phil thought to himself. _I should really try to find a time machine and stop her from being kidnapped. That way I could stop this mess before it started._

They ran outside into the hotel parking lot. They avoided their car just in case what Eliza had said turned out to be true. It was better to be safe than sorry. A white van (similar to the one Eliza was brought in, drove at them. April fired at the two people in it and then pushed everyone out of the way as the vehicle hit a parked car. "Can I drive?" she asked Phil.

Phil shook his head as he opened the door and pulled the dead body out of the driver's seat. "No way. You don't even know how to drive."

"I could learn!" she said defensively as she got in the passengers seat. The others got in the back of the van.

"Not today though." He backed the van up and drove it out of the parking lot. "New York, New York, here we come!"


	14. Chapter 14

April kept checking the rearview mirror every few minutes. Her body was tense and ready for a fight. "Do you guys think they're following us?" she asked.

Eliza, who was watching out the back window, shook her head. "I don't see anything suspicious. I think we lost them."

"That's good," Maria said. "Maybe now you two can relax for two seconds."

"We can't relax," April muttered. "That's exactly when they'll sneak up on us." She looked over at Phil, who hadn't said much for the past couple of hours. "Are you okay?"

He shook his head. "No, I'm not actually. Do you have any idea how fucked up this is? You and Eliza are just kids. John, Maria and I are just wrestlers. We should not be running from crazy government people that want to kill us."

She shrugged. "Yeah, well, we are doing that. We just kind of have to deal with it."

"How? How do we deal with all this bullshit April?"

"I don't know, we just do it! Why are you acting like I have the answers to everything around here?"

The sibling argument was interrupted by John's phone ringing. "Who the hell can this be?" he muttered as he answered it. "Hello? Oh, hi Vince. Oh yeah, I did have that photo shoot. Um…about that…sir, there are some things that have come up and I can't make it. Yes, sir, it's very important. Phil's sister April was molded into an assassin when she was a kid as a part of a CIA conspiracy thingy. Yes, she is the creepy one that beat up Chavo's bodyguard. Anyway people are trying to kill her and us and now we're going to the other labs to free the other girls that are being kept and we're going to fight the government."

April looked at Phil in shock. "Why is he telling Vince this? Has he gone crazy?"

Phil just shook his head. "John, what are you doing?" he asked in amazement. "You can't tell Vince this!"

John put his hand up to shush the both of them. "Yes, it's me, Maria, Phil, April and this other girl Eliza. She's an assassin too. She and April killed a whole bunch of bad guys in the hotel we were staying in. I'm sorry that the hotel wants to sue for property damage, but lives were on the line sir. Yes, I'm serious about all this. If I was lying I would try to make up something much more believable. Yes sir. Uh huh. Okay. Thank you sir. Okay. Bye." He hung up the phone.

"Why did you tell him all that?" Phil asked. "He did not have to know all that."

"Hey, I had a photo shoot today and you two had an autograph signing. I had to tell him or we would have been in some deep shit. Right now we have his blessing to stick it to the CIA. But he does want us at Raw on Monday if we can manage it."

April raised her eyebrows. "You guys have a weird boss."

John, Phil and Maria chuckled. "Oh you have no idea," Maria said with a shake of her head. "You have absolutely no idea how weird the McMahon's are."

_Yeah, I don't know if I want to find out,_ April thought to herself. _I've got bigger things to worry about._ "Eliza, how are we going to get in the lab unnoticed?"

Eliza looked up in surprise. "Wait, we're going to try to get in unnoticed? I thought we were just going to go in with guns a blazing."

"Well I was hoping to come up with a better plan than that," April muttered. She looked into the back of the van and noticed a couple of duffel bags that were behind Maria. "Hey, look through those bags back there," she ordered. "See what's in them."

Maria turned around and grabbed the bags. She opened them up and pulled out some white lab coats. "Okay, this is a little weird. Why would they bring a change of clothes with them?"

April looked out the rearview mirror. There was another van just like theirs and it was trying to discreetly follow them. "I don't know. You can ask them yourself. They found us again."

"Shit!" Phil cursed. He looked around. "What do we do? How do I lose them?"

April unbuckled her seatbelt and climbed into the back seat. "Just keep driving," she ordered. "Eliza, open the door."

"What are you going to do?" John asked as Eliza did what she was told.

"Oh I'm just going to cause a little accident," April said innocently. She raised her gun and fired it at the suspicious van. The van swerved into the other lane to avoid the bullets and got hit by an oncoming semi-truck. April lowered the gun and helped Eliza shut the doors again.

John shook his head. "Jeez April, you're not very subtle, are you?"

"Subtle is overrated," April informed him. She looked around at everybody. "Does anybody else think we should probably find new wheels?"

"Well we kind of need to now," Phil said in exasperation. "Especially since you really just called attention to us."

"Yeah well…just shut up Phil," April muttered. She was too tired to come up with a better comeback than that. She was tired and she just wanted to get some sleep. But she knew very well that it would be quite awhile before she got a decent amount of sleep again. _If I ever do,_ she thought bitterly. _I might just die stone cold tired at this rate._


	15. Chapter 15

April did eventually fall asleep, which made Phil happy. She didn't always sleep easy so it was good for her to get little naps when she could. Eventually he did pull over and let John take the wheel so he could catch a little nap. By the time he woke up again, April was already awake and they were just getting into New York City.

"I don't see anybody trailing us at the moment," Eliza announced. "I don't think they know we're here."

April nodded. "They're probably not expecting us to come after them. They probably think we're trying to get as far away from them as possible."

"Yeah, because that's what sane people might do," Maria pointed out.

John shrugged. "Sanity is overrated. Running into a situation blindly has always been my style anyway."

Phil shook his head. "Maybe we should stop and iron out the kinks in our plan. We can't just run into this laboratory all guns a blazing. I mean, they probably have cameras watching the entrance and if they see us coming, they're going to have people waiting for us."

April turned around to look at him. "They won't be able to see us coming if we knock out the power for the whole city."

"But how the hell do we manage that?"

"Anybody got a laptop with them?"

Maria grabbed her bag and pulled out her laptop. "Did they teach you to do this in the lab?" she asked as she handed it over.

"Sometimes you need complete darkness to go unseen," Eliza and April said at the same time.

Phil shivered. That sounded downright creepy. "Okay, you two are officially scary."

"Wait, you just decided this now?" John asked in disbelief. "I decided that like seven dead bodies ago."

"I would wait until we're actually at the subway station," Eliza told April. "We can't give the lab enough time to get their generators up and running."

April nodded. "I know. But I need to at least get into the city's mainframe because it might take a few minutes. Some cities have better security than others."

"You do realize that what you're doing is completely illegal and we'll probably all get arrested if they find out it was you," John pointed out. They were now within a couple of blocks of the subway station.

"They won't find out it was me," April assured him.

"How do you know?"

"Because I'm special like that."

Phil rolled his eyes. "Well that's reassuring. We're so screwed right now that we don't even know which way is up."

Eliza frowned. "I know which way is up." She pointed to the van ceiling. "See? That way is up." She leaned towards April. "You have a dumb brother."

John parked the van in the subway parking lot. "What about security?" he asked.

"Leave it to me," Eliza said. She got out and disappeared in search for the security guard that was sure to be there. After about two minutes, she reappeared and motioned for them to hurry up and come inside.

"You didn't kill him, did you?" Phil asked as they walked past security guard that was now down on the ground.

Eliza shook her head. "Sleeper hold. Simple, but effective."

April stopped and messed around with the laptop. "We'll have to leave it here because we can't mess with carrying it around," she informed them. She typed something in and licked her lips. "It should be safe behind these trash cans." She looked up at them, hesitating for a second with her finger dangling over the enter button. "And here we go."

They were bombarded by darkness as soon as her finger touched the enter button. Phil almost wished she had come up with another plan. "Wait, I can' see anything!" he exclaimed. "How are we supposed to move around?"

She grabbed his hand and started pulling him along. "Don't worry. I'll help you. Our eyes adjust quicker to the dark."

Not knowing what else to do, he let her lead him down into the subway tunnel. He could only assume that Eliza had a hold of John and Maria. The gun in his pocket weighed heavily on his mind. He knew he was possibly going to have to use it. He had never taken a human life before. He wondered if he could be as unaffected by it as April and Eliza were.

April stepped on something that sounded hollow. "Found it," she said. She bent down and pulled a hidden circular door up. Now that Phil's eyes were starting to adjust, he saw that it was going to be a tight fit for John and himself. "Oh God, I can already feel claustrophobia taking me over," he muttered.

"It's okay big brother, you'll get over it," April assured him.

_Or I'll be too distracted with trying not to die to really notice it anymore,_ he thought to himself as he knelt down and felt around for the ladder that would take them down to the lab. Either way, he knew he was just going to have to suck it up and go on down. "Here we go," he muttered as he began to climb down. Hopefully, they would all be able to come back up in one piece.


	16. Chapter 16

April was definitely afraid as they entered the lab, but she wasn't going to show it. She wasn't afraid for herself; she knew she could handle herself. But she was afraid for the others. She knew that there had been no other option but to bring them down with her. If someone else would have found them while she was down here, there could have been a chance she wouldn't have found them before they had been killed. Still, having them down in this lab with her was not something she enjoyed. She didn't want them a part of this. This was her mess, not theirs.

The doctors were running around trying to get the power back on. April started attacking them before they fully realized who had broken in. It was important that she took care of them quickly because if they realized Eliza was there, they would definitely try to trigger her, which would not be good at all. So she went for the kill on anyone she could grab. She did not enjoy it, but she felt like it was what she had to do.

"The girls are being kept that way," Eliza said.

"Which way?" Maria asked. "I can't see a damn thing around here."

"The cells are between fifty to seventy feet to the left," Eliza clarified.

"Fifty to seventy feet?" Phil repeated in disbelief. "How big is this place?"

"If it's like the lab I was kept in, it's big," April told him. She started leading the group to where Eliza said to go. All of her senses were heightened so intensely that she could barely stand it. She continued to hurt and kill any figure that jumped out in front of her. It was her own brand of justice. Maybe they hadn't known exactly why they were doing what they were doing, but they had to know it was wrong. They had to know that they were destroying innocent people for sick reasons. For that, they had to pay. Besides, killing them kept the others safe, which was a good enough reason for her.

The lab's generator kicked in by the time they reached the cells so they could at least see. There were two girls dressed in hospital gowns cowering in the corner of their cells. One looked to be about sixteen while the other couldn't have been older than nine. "Oh Jesus," John whispered. "Look at their eyes. They look like they've gone insane or something."

"They might have," April told him. "I've seen it happen to a lot of girls. They can't handle the pain the experiments cause and it makes them lose their mind. Then they either kill themselves or the doctors have to put them down." She kicked the first cell door as hard as she could. It swung open easily enough. Eliza went in and tried to talk to the scared sixteen year that was inside. After several minutes, she got the girl to walk out of the cell with her without any incident. Then April kicked the second cell door down. Eliza went in again to try to talk to the small girl that was inside. Only this time, the girl lunged at Eliza and attempted to throttle her.

April went in quickly and took the child off of Eliza. The little girl was screaming like a maniac and her eyes had a feral look to them that made April uneasy. The girl had gone insane. Even if they de-triggered her, there was no helping her. She was too far gone. "Take the others to where they do the experiments," April told Eliza. "They can't see this."

"See what?" Phil asked as Eliza ushered him and the others away. "What are you planning on doing? April!"

April closed her eyes as his voice got farther and farther away. The little girl was still struggling in her arms. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "God help me I'm sorry."

XXXXXXXX

"What is she going to do?" Phil asked Eliza as they entered the experiment room. He had not liked the look on the April's face when the little girl showed how crazy she was. It made him feel like his little sister was about to do something bad.

"She's going to have to take care of the threat," Eliza said. She laid the new girl down on the table. "Do any of you remember what Dr. Johnson did to screw up?"

Maria shrugged. "April does but we'll have to wait for her. What is she doing anyway? She's not going to hurt that girl is she?"

"She's going to make the hurting stop," Eliza told them. "All that girl feels is pain. April will make it disappear."

April showed up a moment later. "It's done," she said emotionlessly. She got everything ready for the new girl's de-triggering. "What's your name?" she asked.

The girl just stared at her blankly.

"Okay, I'll just call you Star then," April decided. "I like that name."

"April, what did you do?" Phil forced himself to ask. As much as he probably did not want to know the answer, he had to ask anyway. It was a compulsion he could not stop.

She just looked at him for a moment. "She was dangerous. A threat to us and herself. She couldn't distinguish between when she was triggered and when she had control. I've seen girls get like her. They were triggered all the time when they got to the point she was at. I had to make it stop. I might be going to hell for it, but I made it stop."

Phil understood what she had done by what she wasn't saying and found his first instinct to be right: he really hadn't wanted to know."


	17. Chapter 17

April sat in the car with John, Eliza and Star as Phil and Maria went to go get them a motel room. They had bought some disguises after they had left the lab so they could travel around a little more easily. Phil and Maria were only getting one room, so things were going to be a little cramped. But they had all agreed that they should stay together as much as they could, just in case anything happened.

"So did we fix them?" John asked April quietly. He was watching Star tap her fingers to beat of the rain that was hitting the window.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure we did," April confirmed. She was looking at Eliza, who looked like she was about to fall asleep at any moment. "I can tell they feel like they actually have control of themselves. People don't realize how hard it is to have someone else being able to control you. It really sucks."

John looked at her. "I honestly don't see how you three survived what you did. You guys are just kids. There was no reason for you guys to have suffered the way you did."

She shrugged. "Well some people thought there were some pretty good reasons. I don't agree with them, but it's too late now. We've got to deal with what we are now."

He bit his lip. "What are you going to do after all this is over?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "I haven't really thought that far ahead. I'm waiting to see if we can live through this and not end up captured. If we can do that, then I'll worry about life after this."

Phil and Maria got back in the van. "Okay, this wig is not fun to wear," Maria complained. She adjusted the blonde wig that was on her head. "I know constantly changing the wigs will keep these creeps off guard about my appearance, but I've already had enough of this shit."

"Poor baby," Phil said sarcastically. "That wig is just plain mean to you. I would hate to see you try to wear this very itchy fake beard. That would really make you lose your mind."

"Do not patronize me tonight Phil Brooks! I am not in the mood to hear it! I am two seconds away from losing it completely!"

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry," Phil apologized as he drove around the motel so they could get into their room. "Don't freak out on me. That's not going to help anything."

April leaned over to John. "Why is she so upset? I know this isn't fun, but it's not the end of the world."

John shook his head. "She hasn't been through the same things you have. She's not exactly prepared to rationally deal with all of this. Neither am I quite frankly."

"Really? You seemed to be dealing pretty well with it."

"Well I've been trying to, but it's been hard not to start freaking out like Maria is up there. We could have crazy CIA people tracking us right now and we might not notice until it's too late! They could send assassins to kill us with sniper rifles, or there could be other girls that are really big and they can--"

April smacked him across the face. "Stop it John. You're going to scare Phil."

"No he's not!" Phil objected. "I'm already fucking terrified, so it's not like anyone's going to be able to make it worse!"

The motel room they had was small and it definitely wasn't the cleanest thing in the world. April was sure she saw a cockroach, but she decided to not raise a panic by pointing that out. The last thing she need was to freak anyone out even more than they already were. There were only two beds and she wasn't quite sure how comfortable they were going to be to sleep on.

"I guess it'll have to be three to a bed," Phil said.

"I'll sleep with John," April volunteered.

Maria and John began to giggle while Phil glared at her.

Star and Eliza looked at each other. "Do you get what's funny?" Eliza asked.

Star shook her head. "No. I don't get it."

April had to think about what she had said before she got it. "Oh…that sounded dirty."

"Yeah, it really did," Phil agreed.

"Well you don't need to worry big brother. I'm not going to actually do anything besides sleep in the same bed as him. There's too many people in here and I think it would be creepy for you to listen as I do it."

Phil's eyes widened and he turned to glare at John. "You touch my sister, you die!" He sounded so threatening that even April took a step back.

"Okay," she said slowly. "Angry brothers are definitely scarier than crazy scientists."


	18. Chapter 18

Phil looked at everyone. They had all managed to get some sleep, but it didn't look like it had really calmed anyone down. Maria and John looked terrified, Star and Eliza looked anxious and April just looked hungry. "Okay people, let's go over our choices again," I said. "Option one: we run and hide and hope nobody finds us."

"Which is a terrible plan because they'll find us anyway," April said. She grabbed the bag of chips John had bought last night from the vending machine and started eating them. "They're good at things like that."

"Well they're connected to the government, so they would have to be," Eliza pointed out.

"What if we hid in Europe?" John suggested.

April shook her head. "They'll find us there eventually too. As long as the main people who are running all the labs want the three of us back, we're not safe anywhere we hide."

"Which leads us to the other two plans," Phil said. "One involves just trying to live normal lives and fighting these guys off whenever they show up and the other is us just staying on track with our current plan and wiping these guys out."

Maria raised her hand. "Well the coward in me wants to hide, but that option is pretty much gone, isn't it?"

Star nodded. "Yeah. I haven't even been with you guys for that long, but I think that you've ruined our chances of effectively hiding."

Phil looked at the others. "What do you guys think?"

"I think we should just finish this," John said. "I'm tired of running and hiding. I say we sic our little assassins on them and eat some popcorn while we watch the carnage."

"Okay, I was going for a way to stop them that didn't involve my sister possibly dying, so let's rethink that strategy a little bit."

April gave Phil an annoyed look. "The more we tried to not get killed, the more likely it is we WILL get killed. Sometimes being careful backfires. Sometimes we have to go balls to the wall."

He frowned. "Yeah, but that's completely reckless."

"Well, I mean, we'll be careful, but you're just trying to make us be overly careful. I've been in situations where it ended up turning out better just because I acted instead of thinking."

He threw up his hands in defeat. "Fine. You know what? Do what you have to do. I'm not fighting with you anymore."

She frowned. "We were fighting? I thought we were talking."

Eliza pursed her lips. "Maybe he just thought you guys were fighting. Boys can be weird like that sometimes."

"On behalf of my gender, hey!" John said.

"Uh…guys?" Star said slowly. She had walked over to the window and had pulled back the curtains just enough so she could peek outside. "I think we might have company."

Everyone joined her at the window. Three men were getting out of a black car and were heading towards the door. They appeared to be alone, but they all knew appearances could be deceiving.

"What do we do now?" Phil asked. He had no idea how they were going to get out of this. This had the word "ambush" written all over it. "They could have people hiding somewhere to jump out and kill us if we go out there."

April shook her head. "They're not here for the kill. They're here to negotiate."

There was a knock on the door. "We know you're the bad people!" Eliza yelled. "And unless you want to die, you better go away."

"I'm afraid we can't do that!" one of the men yelled back. "We're here to end this nonsense."

"That's right," one of the other men said. "Either the three of you come with us peacefully right now and we only wipe the civilians' minds clean, or you can put up a fight and we'll make you watch as we kill the civilians and then take you anyway."

April grinned, which didn't make sense to Phil because there was nothing to smile about in this situation. "How about I make a little counter offer instead? Let's have ourselves a little fight. Me, Eliza and Star versus the girls I know you have to have with you. If your girls win, we'll come with you forever, assuming we live of course. But if we win, you'll shut down the last lab for good, let any other girls you have go and leave all of us the hell alone. What do you say?"

Phil just stared at his sister. "Have you gone absolutely crazy? What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Relax big brother," she whispered so the men couldn't hear them through the doorway. "Star, Eliza and I have things worth fighting for that they don't."

"Oh yeah, what's that?"

"Family, friends and free will. Motivated killing machines kill much better than mindless killing machines."

The third guy behind the door cleared his throat. "Oh April?"

"Yeah?"

"We accept."

April grinned in a way that actually scared Phil. She looked at Star and Eliza. "Are you ready to finish this?"

Eliza nodded. "Oh I'm so ready."

Star grinned. "I thought you would never ask."

Phil sighed and turned to John. "Okay, maybe we're going with your watching the carnage and eating popcorn plan after all."

John sighed. "Yeah, but we don't have any popcorn."

"Well shit. That sucks for us then."


	19. Chapter 19

April tried to block out all of her emotions as she and the others met the three men out in an abandoned field about six miles outside the city. She knew Phil, Maria and John were afraid that the men were not going to keep their end of the deal. There was a slight chance that would happen, but she would jut kill them if they refused to honor the deal they had made. Hell, she just wanted to kill them now too, but she would give them a chance to end this all on their own. It would certainly make things easier on her if they chose to cooperate. And if things were easier on her, they were sure to be easier on Phil and the others too.

"How outnumbered do you think we're going to be?" Eliza asked. She was sitting on one side of April and Star was sitting on the other side.

"We're going to be outnumbered by a lot," April replied. That was pretty much a given in her mind. The men were going to make this as hard as they possibly could for them. "But we're going to be okay. We're going to make it out of this."

"How do you know that?" Star asked.

"Because we really don't have any other options. It's either win or let our lives get controlled again, and there's no way I'm going back to that."

Phil looked over at her. "But are you sure you guys can do this? I mean, it's going to be the three of you versus God knows how many other girls like you. I'm worried about you guys."

_Me too_, April said in her head. She couldn't deny that feeling, no matter how much she wanted to. But she wasn't going to let that worry get the best of her. She was going to use it to make herself even stronger and more dangerous than she usually was. She looked at Star and Eliza. They were both lost in their own world. She hoped they were on the same page as she was, and they wouldn't let their fear get the best of them. They weren't going to get out of this alive if they let that happen.

John pulled the car over at the same time the three men in front of them did. "Do you want us to go out there with you?" he asked April.

She shook her head. "You guys need to stay here." She started to get out of the car, but stopped to look back at them. "If the worst happens, just run, okay? Don't stay and do anything stupid. Just get out of here."

"April wait!" Phil tried to say something else, but April ignored him. Anything he was about to say was probably going to sound like a goodbye, and she didn't want to hear that right now. She could just make him say it later, after she got through this.

"Holy crap," Eliza muttered. She looked at April. "Look around. We're so surrounded."

The younger girl was telling the truth. There had to be at least ten controlled assassins out in the field in front of them, and they all looked ready to kill. April quickly took her gun out and shot the one nearest to her. Nobody said she had to play fair or anything like that.

Their eight remaining opponents quickly spread out and made sure they couldn't be seen. April growled and made sure that she, Star and Eliza stayed in a tight circle as they moved forward. They knew the three men, John, Maria and Phil were all watching them carefully. This wasn't going to last long, no matter which way it went.

Eliza fired her gun twice, hitting one of their opponents and missing another one. Now the odds were six to two. And the other six all rushed them at once while firing their guns at the same time. April, Eliza and Star broke their circle, mainly so they wouldn't get hit. April rolled on the ground and kicked her foot at the girl nearest to her. The girl was at least six feet tall, and April mentally decided to call the girl Amazon.

The kick April delivered to Amazon made the gun fly out of her hands, and April leaped at her before she could pick it up again. Amazon caught her in mid-air and gave her a bone crushing bear hug. April groaned and head butted her in the face. As she was dropped, she hit Amazon with a bladed hand to the throat. As Amazon gasped for breath, April quickly moved behind her, grabbed her by the head and snapped her neck.

More gunfire came April's way, and she used Amazon's body to shield herself from them. The girl holding the gun had very weird eyes; they reminded April of cat eyes. "Bad Kitty," she muttered. She hurled Amazon's body at Kitty, knocking the girl over in the process. Then she picked up her own gun and shot Kitty right between the eyes.

Star killed one of the other girls, which left everything to be three on three. The action stopped for just a second as the girls faced off. Star's arm was bleeding because a bullet had grazed her. Eliza was holding her ribs like her life depended on it. April felt perfectly fine, although she felt a little wary of the three girls in front of her. They were triplets, and from her own experience, this wasn't going to turn out pretty. Back in her days of being a captive in the lab, there had been a set of twins there. They had been really good at the whole assassin thing, and if it hadn't been for both of them going insane and killing themselves, they would have joined her as Dr. Johnson's only real successes.

The triplets began moving at once, causing April and her friends to go on defense. April blocked as many punches as she could from Triplet One, hoping that the other girl would tire herself out with her fast and furious offense. When that plan didn't work as fast as she wanted it to, she started getting in some offense of her own. She needed to end this as soon as possible, because out of the corner of her eye, she could see Star and Eliza having trouble with the other two triplets.

Triplet One made the mistake of letting April catch both of her arms at the same time. April put the heel of her boot up on Triplet One's throat and used her other foot to help push herself forward and Triplet One back first down to the ground. Her boot went directly into the girl's throat, and she stomped it twice to make sure that the girl's windpipe was crushed completely. This caused Triplets Two and Three to turn their attention to her, and both Eliza and Star shot them down at the same time.

"Yes!" Phil yelled triumphantly. His window was rolled down and his head sticking out of it. "Yes! Yes! Yes!"

April ignored him and started to advance on the three men who were looking at her fearfully. Star and Eliza were right behind her, and they looked ready to keep killing if necessary.

"It's over now," Eliza said. "We won."

"You did," the first man agreed.

"You know what you have to do," Star growled. "You make this stop. You let us go three, and you shut down that last lab."

"And believe me, I'll find out if you don't," April added. She didn't really know how she would find that out, but she figured she could find out anyway.

The second man shook his head. "You killed all the girls from that lab. There's nothing left of it now."

"Then you don't ever start replacing those girls," April snapped. She held her gun up in a threatening gesture. "Because if you do, I will hunt you down and kill you all slowly. And whoever is running this show, you tell them it was a tremendous failure and that the whole thing should just be forgotten. Do I make myself clear?"

The third man nodded as he and the other two started walking away. "Yes. You've made yourself perfectly clear."

April watched the three men until they were completely out of sight. Then she looked at Star and Eliza. "That really sucked," she complained. "Let's not ever do anything like that again."

Eliza nodded. "I agree. Now that I'm not all a weird assassin person, I don't actually like using my abilities. It makes me feel bad."

"So what do we do now?" Star asked as they headed back to the car.

April shrugged. "I don't know. Let's figure that out later. Right now, I just want to go to bed and sleep for like a week."


	20. Chapter 20

April was soon shocked by the fact that the promise of being left alone was actually kept. People stopped coming after them immediately, and they were able to go back to their regular lives. Of course, some things had changed quite a bit. Eliza and Star, who could not really remember who their real families were, came to live with April and Phil. Maria also ended up moving in, so the house became really crowded. Phil and Maria ended up getting engaged about two weeks after the whole thing ended, and once the wedding was over, they were going to buy a bigger house so everyone would be more comfortable. John also started hanging out with all of them a lot more, which was just great in April's book. Her crush on him hadn't faded and now she just had to figure out how to get him to be her boyfriend without Phil killing him.

About a month after the last fight had gone down, April, Eliza and Star were sitting in Phil's locker room. Phil was out wrestling and Maria was taping some interview thing, so the three girls were all alone. "I wish we could wrestle," Star said wistfully as she twirled her hair with her fingers. "That would be so much fun."

Eliza shook her head. "April's the only one of us old enough to do it, and Phil says it's not a good idea. He doesn't want us really hurting someone on accident."

April nodded. She had had another discussion with Phil about the whole wrestling thing, and he was still adamant about her not doing it. And honestly, she could see his point. She really could. That didn't mean she wouldn't _ever_ do it without his blessing; she was just going to wait for awhile and see if he changed his mind on his own. She figured that she owed him that much after the gigantic mess she had brought on him and Maria in the first place. "Phil's still going to worry for awhile. But he'll get over it eventually."

"I hope so," Star muttered. "He's ALWAYS around and it gets a little annoying. I mean honestly, what would happen if we did a few of the things we wanted to?"

"Well maybe he would have started easing up a little if you hadn't joked about us going out and taking some boys to be our love slaves," Eliza pointed out.

"I was just joking! I didn't know he was going to take me seriously!"

April giggled. She remembered the look on Phil's face perfectly when Star had said that. It had literally looked like his eyes had been about ready to burst out of his head. If he would have had a weaker heart, it would have given out on him. "Phil doesn't like thinking about us with boys. Female teenaged hormones scare him."

"That explains why he treats you all like ticking time bombs."

The girls grinned as John let himself into the room. April found herself trying to hide her blush, which made Eliza and Star giggle like idiots. She glared at both of them, which made them giggle even harder.

John shook his head. "Do I even want to know?"

"That depends," Eliza said with an evil grin.

April was two seconds away from hitting her. "Shut up you," she growled.

"Hey John, what would you do if someone you knew had a crush on you?" Star asked.

April kicked her. "Star! Shut up!"

John raised his eyebrow at her. "Wow, so you do have a crush on me?"

Her eyes widened. "How did you know?"

"Well that kick kind of gave you away."

"Oh." She mentally cursed herself. Damn it, why hadn't she realized that? She was supposed to be smarter than that. _I'm really not good at the whole boys thing. I really should start going to Maria for advice. Now I just feel dumb._

He patted her on the leg. "It's okay April. You don't need to look so freaked out."

"Yes I do," April muttered. "I'm a freak, so looking freaked out is something I should be doing quite often."

He shook his head. "You're not a freak. You're just a normal girl who went through some freaky shit. There's a difference."

Well that was kind of a lie, but April appreciated it, so she didn't object to it. She just looked at him and was struck by a sudden impulse. "John?"

"Yeah?"

She kissed him right on the lips…right as Phil walked into the room.

"Uh oh," Eliza and Star said at the same time.

"Oh shit," John muttered.

"What the hell is going on in here?" Phil yelled. "Get away from my little sister Cena!"

April sighed. Maybe she would never really be normal, but she did have to deal with things normal girls had to deal with. The main one being her overprotective big brother. "I kissed him Phil," she snapped. "I want him to be my boyfriend, so get over it."

Phil could not have looked any more flustered if he had tried. "But…but…"

Eliza and Star got up and started dragging him out of the room. "Come on Punk," Star said. "Let's leave the love birds alone for awhile."

John shook his head at Phil's loud objecting. "He's going to kill me later."

"Don't worry, I'll protect you," April assured him. She kissed him again. "So about the being my boyfriend thing…"

He grinned. "Well if I don't die, I say let's give it a shot."

She grinned too as she sealed the deal with another kiss. NOW she felt like a normal girl again, which was nice because she had forgotten what that had been like. And now that she had a small bit of normalcy again, she wasn't letting it go without a fight. She had enough excitement in her life to last a life time after all.


End file.
